


The Disappearance of Akashi Seijuurou

by tormalyne



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 12:04:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4221081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tormalyne/pseuds/tormalyne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not like one Akashi disappeared and got replaced by the other one all of a sudden one day. Nijimura’d be happier if he could be like everyone else and not have a clue.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>The first time Akashi disappeared, Nijimura didn’t notice. He couldn’t be blamed for the oversight; on that particular morning, he and Akashi Seijuurou hadn’t even met.</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	The Disappearance of Akashi Seijuurou

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for BPS OTP Battle.

The first time Akashi disappeared, Nijimura didn’t notice. He couldn’t be blamed for the oversight; on that particular morning, he and Akashi Seijuurou hadn’t even met.

Pure chance had Nijimura turning the corner just as Akashi’s family car pulled up to Teikou’s gates, Nijimura jogging a little to make sure he wasn’t late for his first day as a second year and, more importantly, finally officially captain of the basketball club.

With his mind occupied by thoughts of the first practice of the year, he had no attention to spare for the car sitting at the curb down the street from the school. Past the car’s gleaming bulk, Nijimura saw a friend from the club, waved, and sped up a little to knock shoulders with him as they walked through the gate.

Even if he had been looking, he wouldn’t have been able to understand what he saw, anyway. Akashi’s chauffeur opened the door, Akashi stepped from the car and asked the driver not to pick him up again. Between one moment and the next, in the breath between words, Akashi flickered, like a film reel skipping over a damaged frame. It happened so quickly that the driver didn’t even realize Akashi had been gone for that split second of time.

The second time, Nijimura quite reasonably thought his eyes were just playing tricks on him. One second, Akashi was reading something on his phone and just barely, maybe, looking like he might be about to frown. The next second, he was gone. Nijimura blinked and rubbed at his eyes. Akashi was there again, of course, tucking his phone away and reaching for his indoor shoes to change. It had to have been his imagination.

The third time Akashi disappeared, Nijimura wasn’t sure what to think. It was obvious to anyone with half a brain that the third years would hardly be happy to have a first year brat (and regardless of his nice manners, Akashi was still definitely a brat) as a vice-captain, even if the position was shared. Hell, some of the idiots still weren’t thrilled about a second year captain, even if they’d wised up enough not to say anything about it where anyone could hear.

It didn’t matter about any bruised pride, though. The rule in Teikou was that the players who would get them wins were the ones who played and the ones who lead the team. That was why Nijimura’d insisted Akashi be made vice-captain in the first place. He’d seen things coming since that first day when a bunch of first year brats made it onto first string without breaking a sweat.

The rule in Teikou was victory. Anyone who stood in the way wasn’t needed.

Not that that stopped some of Nijimura’s more dim-witted seniors from cornering Akashi a few weeks after his position as vice-captain had been announced. Or, well, they tried to corner him, at least, circling around Akashi and looming in a way just short of threatening. Nijimura could have told them not to waste their time, but if he’d thought Akashi needed that kind of protection, he wouldn’t have made him vice-captain in the first place. Nijimura watched from the doors of the gym, curious to see how Akashi would handle this. He was sure he wouldn’t have to step in.

The expected resentful remarks and pointed shifting of much-heavier weights didn’t faze Akashi in the slightest – not that Nijimura’d expected any of it to. He didn’t have Akashi’s skill for predicting strategies, but this kind of thing practically came with a script.

Right as Akashi opened his mouth to play his part and respond with what Nijimura was sure was going to be some infuriatingly polite and at the same time incredibly cutting remark, he vanished. Just stopped being there. The circle of third years spent a moment in conversation with each other and dispersed, like they’d all just stopped in the gym for a chat.

It didn’t make sense. Shouldn’t they have wondered what they’d been doing?

Nijimura watched the trouble makers walk away, toward the locker room for showers, and made a note of who they were. When he looked back to the corner of the gym, Akashi was standing there again as if he’d never left, watching the retreating backs with the same sharp, evaluating gaze that Nijimura was sure was on his own face.

The third years didn’t bother Akashi again.

The fourth time, Nijimura had to acknowledge facts. Akashi’d brought the shrimpy low-presence kid in for his special test and Nijimura took a break from trying to keep track of him to say something to Akashi about the kid’s weird passes – except Akashi wasn’t there. He should have been right by Nijimura’s side where he’d been standing the whole match, radiating a palpable aura of smug, self-satisfaction, like Kuroko was a dog displaying a clever new trick.

Akashi was gone, though, just for a minute. Someone yelled as the kid made another steal on the court, and Nijimura looked back just in time to see one of the second stringers score. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the flicker of movement, Akashi’s chest heaving in one sudden, sharp breath as Akashi was suddenly, inexplicably there again.

How did you even bring up that kind of thing, Nijimura wondered. Did you just ask if someone noticed that they seemed to have a periodic problem with existing? Or maybe it was that existence had a problem with them.

Whatever it was, Nijimura didn’t have time for it.

The fifth time Akashi disappeared, Nijimura was staring right at him. He looked up from a three-on-three defense drill, wiped sweat out of his eyes, and saw Akashi guarded by a double team of third years and still lining up a shot from the three-point line on the other end of the court. Akashi was going to miss the basket, Nijimura could already tell. He was at a bad angle; one of the players on defense was about to steal the ball.

Akashi’s knees bent. His arms flexed, and the ball dropped to the ground like dead weight. One of the third years caught it on the bounce and stepped up to the line, stood in the air where Akashi should have been, and readied himself to shoot like he’d been the one on offense the whole time.

He missed the basket. Nijimura went toppling as Haizaki ran right into him, clearly expecting his captain to be playing while he was on the court. The drills were still going; no one else had seen Akashi vanish into thin air.

It took until an hour after practice for Akashi to show up again. He reappeared without fanfare, was just suddenly at Nijimura’s side where he was sprawled out on the court and slumped against his bag as a back rest, waiting. There wasn’t even a puff of displaced air to signal Akashi’s renewed presence.

“You need to do something about that,” Nijimura said neutrally. Akashi stared down at him, eyes just slightly wide, with the nerve to look surprised. As if he wasn’t the one who kept up and vanishing.

Akashi swallowed, and his mouth curved up in a small, slanted smile that Nijimura couldn’t read at all. The startled look disappeared from around his eyes.

“I’ll work on it, Nijimura-senpai,” Akashi said.

And as far as Nijimura could tell, Akashi did. There were no more instances of his vice-captain disappearing during practice or meetings or school hours at all. If it was still going on outside of school, Nijimura didn’t know, and didn’t really care. He had other things to worry about back home.

His dad’s condition was only getting worse, but at least it was a slow decline. At this rate, he could probably keep up with basketball for another year. As long as Akashi kept his disappearing problem under control, it’d be fine to hand off the captaincy to him when things really went downhill. Things were well in hand. Nijimura could see how it was going to be, but it was going to be fine in the end. Somehow.

Then, two months later, Nijimura got to school, and no one had ever heard the name Akashi Seijuurou.

“Akashi who?” Momoi said, guilelessly puzzled when he asked if Akashi wasn’t there because he was sick or something. The rest of the first year regular brats (and Kuroko and most of the entire first string) looked at him like he was crazy when he repeated the question.

“You know, Akashi, one of our vice-captains, been playing for first string since last year?” he said, irritation a low growl in his voice, and gestured with his hand vaguely at a space in the air around Akashi’s height. Maybe he was waving an inch or two lower than reality, but Akashi deserved it for putting him through this whole headache of a mess. 

The blank stares he got for that bit of effort were too discouraging for him to try explaining again.

No one he asked could remember Akashi, either. He tried Akashi’s homeroom, the shogi club, even, surreptitiously, the student council. Another boy, tall and black-haired and unremarkably ordinary, was sitting in the president’s seat at the head of the table and only gave him a politely bewildered stare.

Nijimura mumbled something that might have been an excuse and fled, ducking out and jogging back to his classroom to see if he could grab something for lunch. If he had to go to afternoon practice on an empty stomach because he’d been too busy trying to find somehow who’d forgotten to exist, he was going to murder Akashi the second he deigned to appear again.

One of his friends shared a bento, but Akashi still hadn’t showed by the time the last bell rang. What kind of example was this, the next club captain skipping practice? Nijimura decided he’d kill Akashi anyway.

He was still set on a little educational murder of certain juniors the next morning when Akashi was waiting for him at entrance to the gym, keys in hand, the doors not yet unlocked. Nijimura glared at a point over Akashi’s head, snatched the keyring, and did his best to pretend Akashi was still vanished while he fumbled with the doors’ lock.

“I thought you were gonna work on it,” he finally snapped, after Akashi had followed him in and very helpfully gone about staring holes into his back for a solid ten minutes of silence while he dragged out a cart of balls, snatched one out, and set up by the free throw line.

“I did,” Akashi said quietly. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience I’ve caused.”

Nijimura rolled his eyes, bounced the ball, and sent it sailing neatly into the net with a sharp, satisfying swish that did absolutely nothing to dispel the low burn of anger (anger? more like worry) in his gut.

“Don’t you wonder why you’re the only one who’s noticed?” Behind him, Akashi’s footsteps echoed on the floor as they came closer. Nijimura stiffened as he felt Akashi’s hand settle lightly on his waist and a weight that could only be Akashi’s forehead nestle against his back. “Nijimura-senpai.”

“Not really,” Nijimura said, frozen. But it was almost a lie, thick in his throat. He let Akashi stay like that until they heard the scuffed footfalls of the rest of the team arriving for morning practice.

But then his father took that expected turn for the worst. He passed off the captaincy, whether Akashi had a handle on existing or not. 

For a while, he didn’t have any time at all to think about how Akashi was managing. If Akashi was there all the time, or if it was a blank space leading Teikou to victory more often than not.

_(After he graduated, after he’d left Teikou in Akashi’s capable hands, Nijimura dreamed:_

_“Who are you?” he heard Kuroko ask. What a stupid question. Wasn’t it obvious, with Akashi standing right there in front of him, wide eyed – wild eyed – and smiling ready to crack?_

_Nijimura had the odd sense it wasn’t a dream he was seeing at all, but a memory that he’d never had. Whatever it was, he knew, somehow, inexplicably, that it had happened._

_“I’m Akashi Seijuurou, of course, Te-tsu-ya.” As if there could have been any other answer. Nijimura knew, that had been Akashi all along. It wasn’t Nijimura’s problem if no one else had realized that Akashi Seijuurou was disappearing a long time ago.)_

end, part 1


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